Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Seselja refers to Adelaide Juventus. If this government is serious about restoring some credibility—this afternoon we're going to hear about a sports integrity bill from this government. Senator Seselja and his colleagues are going to try to improve integrity for sports men and women in Australia. What about showing a bit of integrity yourself? Out of those 400 clubs which Sport Australia said ought to be getting the grants—and we've heard this from Senator Smith this afternoon—12 of them were going to help improve the facilities for women sports players in this country. What about this government showing some integrity—the sort of integrity that they're requiring sports men and women to adopt? Why don't they show a little bit of integrity themselves and say to those 400 clubs that Sport Australia recommended get a grant, 'Yes, we're going to give you the money that we should've given you before the last election'?

If this government had any integrity, that's exactly what they would be doing. But no.

When this proposition came up in the lower house, moved by our leader, Anthony Albanese, what did the government do? They shut the debate down. Well, it's too late to do that. There's going to be an inquiry, and we're going to get to the bottom, whether the government likes it or not, of this absolute sports rort. The minister treated public money—$100 million of public money—as if it were her own personal chequebook. This was an industrial-scale pork-barrelling exercise designed to get the government re-elected. It was nothing else. The fact is that Minister Cormann kept adding and adding and adding to the amount of money and, every time they did it, all of the recommendations from Sport Australia were rejected and they were replaced.